


Regulation

by cyphernaut



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Discipline, Hints of Ageplay, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyphernaut/pseuds/cyphernaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to the following prompt:<br/>When Mary moves in, she and John become Sherlock's disciplinarians. In a completely nonsexual way, and not mean. They do it in a caring way, like parents. So spankings, early bedtimes, time-out, the works. Bonus for having Mary spank Sherlock.</p><p>Note:  I wasn't sure how to do the pairings here.  There is no explicit John/Mary, though it is fairly clear they are in a relationship.  The discipline relationships are John/Sherlock and Mary/Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is fantasy. Please don't take this as condoning this sort of approach.

“Sherlock, come to the kitchen.”

John's words slammed into Sherlock's mind palace, jarring him from his musings and depositing him straight back into the physical world. The data splintered across his consciousness, meaning and connections fragmented until he had the time and energy to reconstruct them. John's tone of voice hinted that the opportunity would not come tonight. Sherlock opened his eyes.

“Why?”

“Because I've asked you to come to the kitchen,” John said pointedly, suddenly appearing in the doorway. It wasn't a good sign, John coming to find him. Even worse was that John spun on his heels and strode off without another word.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stood, unwilling to risk whatever might come if he didn't follow. It didn't take a consulting detective to deduce why Sherlock always seemed to get in trouble in the kitchen. That was, after all, where they kept the wooden spoons. 

John's hands were empty, though, unless one counted the handle of the refrigerator door. It stood ajar, a state that John normally abhorred in refrigerator doors, but apparently the presence of a plastic bag of cerebral tissue overrode all concerns about the electricity bill.

“I don't care what this is, or why you have it. It's not food, and it doesn't belong on the food shelf. Bin it, or move it to your experiment shelf.”

Sherlock _had_ tried to put the tissue samples on his own shelf, but they hadn't fit. He hadn't expected John or Mary to see reason, but he'd felt justified enough in his own desperation to carve out an exception to the agreement they'd made. “There's no room on my experiment shelf.”

“Then bin it, or bin something else to make room for it.” The slight tilt of John's head to the left, the lift of his brows, and each lurching breath all served as a countdown through which Sherlock could measure his window of opportunity to say his piece.

“Every sample is indispensable, John. Losing any one of them would render the entire experiment useless.”

“Then bin them all. Find a solution that doesn't involve tissue samples on the food shelf. If you can't, I'll find one for you, and it will involve a ban on experiments for the next week.”

Gritting his teeth at John's intractable nature, Sherlock snatched the jar from the shelf before John made good on his promise. He shoved a few of his other supplies around, cramming the jar into the unruly cluster of assorted tissues, chemicals, and dirt samples. 

“There.” He slammed the refrigerator door, as much as one can slam the door of an airtight container with a rubber seal. “Are you happy?”

“No, I'm not happy. I'm not happy with your attitude right now, and I'm not happy that you've decided you can break rules you've agreed to just because it's more convenient for you at the time.”

“Ah, I see. Shall I tell you why I'm not happy?” Sherlock took in every nuance of John's stance, expression, and tone, summing them up into a neat measure of exactly how much he could say. “I'm not happy that my experiments are threatened by your lack of understanding of the scientific method.”

As the words left his mouth, Sherlock could see how badly he had miscalculated. John's head tilted further, his brows lifted higher, and, most importantly, his hands shot out, one to grab Sherlock by the elbow and the other to land a white-hot smack on his bum. For a man with an injured shoulder, he was devilishly quick.

“Watch your attitude,” he warned.

Sherlock kept his mouth shut. It was the best he could do, though he was sure John was hoping for some expression of contrition, verbal or otherwise. While he wouldn't go so far as to apologise, he wasn't going to deepen his troubles, either, not with the veritable cornucopia of spoons and spatulas within easy reach.

As much as John and Mary pushed food on him, they spent an inordinate amount of time conditioning him to associate its preparation with pain and suffering.

After a few moments, John's face softened into the mild not-regret he succumbed to after every physical reprimand. He was never quite sorry to have disciplined Sherlock, but he couldn't help soothing him either, even when Sherlock had been at his worst.

“Mary said we can have fish or chicken for dinner. What do you fancy?”

Sherlock recognized the olive branch. He knew he should just choose one and pretend to put everything behind him. He saw all this, and yet his skin still smarted where John had smacked him, his tissue samples had probably been damaged by all the stuffing and crimping he'd had to put them through, and he was back at his starting point for the deductions he'd been making when John interrupted him. More than that, the entire day had been poisoned by an indeterminate undercurrent of awfulness that he could not analyse.

“I'm not hungry,” he said coldly.


	2. Chapter 2

General wisdom states that the absence of one sense can heighten the others, and in Sherlock's case, the blinding monotony of staring at a bleak corner of the kitchen wall had certainly predisposed him to take advantage of any stimulation still available to him. He heard the awkward tinkling of keys being handled by an hand weighted by bags, the click-clunk of a door closed expertly by a heeled shoe, and the slightly syncopated beat of those same shoes on the staircase. Tescos. Three bags in the left hand, two in the right, with the handbag slung crosswise over the right shoulder. The heels would make a distinctive asymmetrical scuff on the staircase. Female, obviously. Height of approximately 160 centimetres, 165 with the heels. Late thirties.

Of course, Sherlock already knew much of that about Mary Morstan.

“John? Sherlock?” she called as she opened the kitchen door, and Sherlock took that as permission to turn around and face her. “Ah, there you are!” she said, as if she had been searching for him, or he was expected to be outside the flat waiting like the Buckingham Palace Guard.

She dumped the bags on the kitchen table, then rubbed the circulation back into her arms. Of course, if they were allowed to eat takeaway more than once a week, the Tesco's bags would not be so heavy as to numb her fingers, but Sherlock was not about to say anything, especially as he was already in the corner and facing an early bedtime. He contented himself with filing the information away in his arsenal for their next takeaway discussion, and endured the evening ritual of Mary grabbing him up and mashing her lips against his temple.

As far as Sherlock could tell, Mary loved her students immensely but was was required to keep a professional distance, and thus Sherlock was the receptacle for all her excess affection. He screwed his eyes shut to avoid bring blinded by an errant hair or a misfired kiss.

When it was finally safe, he opened them again, widened them until he was giving off subtle cues of repentance, hope and vulnerability.

“Can I come out of the corner now?” He topped off the manipulative melange by biting lightly at his lower lip.

“Did John send you here?”

Sherlock recognized the line of questioning and rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Then I am 'obviously' not the person you should be directing that question toward.”

She softened the denial with a kiss to his hair, then set about arranging his curls to her liking. Sherlock allowed it, as she'd probably made an insufferable mess of them, snuffling around in there.

“Sherlock is being punished. He's supposed to be reflecting on his behaviour, not having his hair stroked.”

Mary's hands disappeared at the sound of John's voice, and Sherlock trained his eyes back on the grim corner he'd been staring at before the brief reprieve.

“Sorry,” Mary said, and Sherlock heard them kiss. Of course the two of them could enjoy each other's affection whilst Sherlock was held psychologically captive in a prison of John's making.

“Sherlock, if you'd like to get up now you may.” Sherlock was already out of the chair when he heard John continue, “However-”

He sighed and sank back into the chair, spinning it toward John in anticipation of his release.

“First, you are not starting with a clean slate,” John explained. “You have exhausted today's ration of insults, attitude, rudeness, and general unpleasant behaviour. Is that clear?”

Sherlock nodded. His daily ration of the aforementioned behaviours was usually zero, or so it seemed to him, so this didn't come as a surprise.

“Second, please put away the groceries.”

Given the first condition of his freedom, Sherlock thought better than to complain about the second. He began the sentence of forced labour in silence, but was soon prodded to conversation as John helped him with his task and Mary started on their dinner.

Mostly John and Mary chatted, of course, trailing Sherlock along as they meandered through all the inane topics topics of small talk and daily life. Sherlock sifted through old cases in his head, cataloguing evidence and evaluating witness accounts, occasionally answering one of John or Mary's direct questions. Soon, he found himself sitting at the table, his plate speckled with the remains of the dinner he'd eaten unwittingly.

“Sherlock's turn to do the washing up,” John proclaimed.

“It's always my turn!” he protested, more to honour tradition than anything else.

“It was my turn yesterday, and Mary cooked, so it's your turn.”

“I spent the whole afternoon in the corner, and then you forced me to eat when I wasn't hungry, and now I'm forced to do the washing up even though I didn't want to eat dinner in the first place.”

“Ah, the humanity! How will you survive?” Mary winked at him, and he scowled.

“Considering the 'whole afternoon' amounted to less than ten minutes, I think you'll be fine,” John assured him. “I have plans tonight, so I'll be back late. You still have an early bedtime. Ten o'clock. That means in bed at ten, not getting ready for bed at ten.”

A world of possibilities had just opened up for Sherlock with John leaving the house. He could surely convince Mary to allow him to stay up later, and Mrs. Hudson would be more than willing to do the dishes for them. A plan began to coalesce.

“Sherlock, is that clear?” 

Sherlock's attention snapped back to John, who was standing and gathering his things to leave the flat.

“Non, je ne comprends plus l'anglais,” he answered. Whatever John had said was unenforceable in his absence, regardless.

“D'accord, smart arse.” John clapped him on the shoulder, then leaned over him to kiss Mary goodbye. “Don't let him stay up past ten.”

“John.” She looked up at him in that particular way that teachers had of looking down at a person from any direction. John took it in stride, as he always did.

“Good night, darling,” he grinned at her, and she smiled back. Sherlock was smiling, too, underneath his studied bland demeanour. As soon as John was gone, he could put his plan into action.

“And Sherlock,” John added from the doorway, “if I come back and the washing up is not done, or someone else has done it, it will be your turn for the next three weeks.”

Sherlock's internal smile crumpled.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock's fingers were wrinkled from water and fairy soap and all manner of disgusting substances that adhered to hands and dishes though a series of scrubs and rinses. He'd put it off as long as he could, hoping for a miracle in the form of a case or nuclear fallout or whatever his emancipation would require. When the heavens had not delivered by half nine, Sherlock had accepted his fate.

Unwilling to touch his experiments or violin with his contaminated fingers, Sherlock slumped onto the sitting room sofa. Mary sat at the table marking a stack of papers with a green glitter pen. Sherlock had observed the sparkling annotations and smiley faces from across the room. She had broken a metacarpal as a child. It was most likely an accident, but it could indicate abuse, which could further explain the intense protectiveness she had for her students.

It could also explain why she'd not punished Sherlock past any mild scolding, despite her purported willingness to do so.

Even better for Sherlock, it could explain why she'd be unlikely to punish him in the future.

He grabbed a magazine and settled into the sofa.

“Don't get too comfortable, Sherlock,” Mary warned just as he'd chosen an article. “You'll need to get ready for bed soon.”

Sherlock began to read.

“Did you hear me, Sherlock?”

“Yes, of course I heard you. You're speaking quite loudly and this is a small room.” He kept his eyes locked on the article, but his peripheral vision gave him just enough to see her stiffen and place the pen on the desk, giving him her full attention.

“Sherlock, it's time to get ready for bed.”

Sherlock sighed the sigh of the perpetually aggrieved and lay the magazine on his chest. “John's not here.”

“You're here, and you're the only person who needs to be here for you to follow the rules.” 

Sherlock scoffed at the trite reasoning, and Mary's eyebrows shot up at the derision. Significantly, though, she hadn't mentioned anything about her being there to enforce the rules.

“Go get ready for bed.”

The timbre of her voice was new, as well as the pitch contours of the sentence. He'd not heard her speak like this before, but he recognized the effect, the lowering of pitch along with the falling cadence within each phrase. It was an authoritarian tone, pure psychological manipulation to coerce obedience using the power of the human voice. Sherlock's body tensed, but his mind quelled the urge to do as she said. He picked up the magazine and began to read, or rather feigned reading as he watched Mary advance on him from the corner of his eye.

She plucked the magazine from his hands and used it to point him to his bedroom.

“Now, Sherlock. Go.”

Sherlock had to admit that she was doing quite well for herself, exuding authority from every pore. He reminded himself that she worked at a state school, institutions known for their complete lack of discipline.

“No.”

Her eyes flicked over him, appraising: not a calculating assessment as Sherlock would make, but a desperate, final effort to find a clue as to how to resolve a situation in her favour. Whatever she found left her defeated and resigned.

“Sherlock, just do it.” She pressed her lips together, then added, “Or I'll smack you.”

Her ploy was so transparent, his victory so decisive, that Sherlock couldn't help but let the tiny corners of a smile play across his mouth as he said, “No.” 

As the evidence of his self-satisfaction teased over his lips, Mary's face hardened. 

“Get to the kitchen.”

Surely she didn't think that after disobeying a direct command to go to his bedroom, he'd obey one even less pleasant. He searched her face curiously for any indications of her motivation. As he deduced her, she grabbed his elbow, and when he refused to budge, she moved her grip to his ear. 

As Sherlock quickly learned, where he ear went, so went he. He followed the pain to the kitchen, where Mary grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and bent Sherlock over the table. Of all the drawbacks to cooking at home, from the lack of fried foods to the endless washing up, Sherlock was sure that the ready availability of wooden kitchen utensils was his least favourite.

“No, Mary, wait! You don't have to. I'll go to bed, now.”

The spoon popped over his clothed skin, burning through the fabric to leave its incriminating mark on his person. He tried to distract himself by projecting the location of each blow based on Mary's height and build, but before he could start calculations,it was over. Sherlock righted himself, then fidgeted with his sleeves as he waited before Mary's impassive face.

“Is there anything you'd like to say?” she asked.

Sherlock shook his head. There were many things that he would like to say to her, but none that did not risk sparking another torrent of punishment.

Mary tapped the spoon absently against the side of her leg. “All right. You only have six minutes before you need to be in bed.”

Turning from her without a word, Sherlock fled to his room. If asked, he could say that he didn't want to waste any of his precious time with idle chit chat. Indeed, he performed his evening rituals in record time, and he was just sliding under the duvet when there was a knock at his bedroom door.

“Sherlock, are you all right?” Mary peeked into the darkened room, the concept of personal privacy long having been lost to the three of them. Sherlock could admit that he had done more than his share of tearing down those walls, rummaging through Mary's things when she'd first moved in, cracking through security passwords, and generally treating locked doors as a minor inconvenience.

Still, that did not mean Sherlock needed to be an active participant in having his inner workings laid bare to the two of them. He turned from the door. “It's past ten o'clock. I'm not allowed to talk or do anything other than lie in bed with my eyes closed, as you well know.”

“I see. Good night, Sherlock.”

Sherlock didn't reply. It was against the precious rules, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horrible week, sorry. I hope it didn't drag down the story too much.

Some might call Sherlock Holmes an insomniac, but that was not quite the true. Granted, he was known to spend days upon days without a wink of sleep, but that was of his own accord. Sherlock chose when he slept, and he chose when he woke. Generally, he did not sleep unless all more interesting options were closed to him, and there were few things less interesting than sleep.

One of the few things on that short list was lying in bed with his eyes closed. Sherlock had tried deducing cases whilst he was lying in bed, but invariably he would need a bit of information that he had never encountered before, and he would reach for the laptop that John had confiscated for the night, or the smart phone that John had confiscated for the night, or any other manner of reference material that John did not allow in his bedroom, and Sherlock would be stymied. In other words, it was better just to sleep.

If Sherlock had noticed a marked increase in his ability to manage his behaviour and otherwise deal with idiots since the bedtime had been instituted, he chose not to acknowledge it.

It was rare, then, for him to lie awake in bed, especially when there was nothing for him to mull over. Without anything of import to consider, Sherlock instead replayed the events of the night inside his mind, watching the quickly shifting dynamic between him and Mary, a former refuge of neutrality in all disciplinary matters. He was cross-referencing with earlier data when he heard the flat door open and close softly.

“John!” he called out, before he realized what he had done. 

John's light footsteps approached, and the bedroom door opened to reveal his silhouette, backlit from the kitchen. “Why are you still awake?”

“Mary smacked me.” The hot creep of shame climbed his face as the words escaped his mouth. It didn't answer John's question, and it wasn't something Sherlock wished to discuss.

“I know. She told me. She also told me you wouldn't talk to her afterwards.” Of course, she would have sent John a text with her own version of the events.

“I had nothing to say.”

“An apology would have been a good start.”

“She'd already smacked me. What use would an apology have been?”

Even with John's expression obscured by the darkness, Sherlock could see that he'd said the wrong thing. Not so wrong that John would punish him for it, but wrong enough that condemnation was clearly spelt out in the lines of John's sillouette. “Sherlock, you've agreed to all of these rules and consequences, and you've asked us to enforce them for you. Trying to manipulate her into feeling guilty that she's done as you asked is unacceptable. God knows Mary and I would both be willing to stop this if that's what you wanted.”

“I'd be banned from cases at the Yard.” It had already happened, and it had taken an inordinate amount of pleading from John and desperation from Lestrade to get the ban lifted.

“If you can't learn to control your behaviour on your own, probably, yes.” He drew in breath as if to speak, but didn't, not for several moments until he finally said, “You could always go back on the medication.”

Sherlock's face twisted in the dark. He'd tried medication, and he'd been a marginally pleasant idiot, incapable of engaging in any of the intellectual activities that made him who he was. “I'd be useless.”

“You're more than just your deductive prowess.” John had told him that before, and maybe it was true in John's case, but not when it came to the rest of the world. Sherlock's work was his life, and John knew that, knew that it was the only thing tethering him to the rest of society. At Sherlock's silent protest, John entered, perching on the very edge of the bed, his concerned expression finally visible in the dim light diffusing from the kitchen. “It's your decision.”

It wasn't a decision at all. There was no choice left for him, not when his own mind betrayed him at every opportunity. He'd honed it into a precise instrument, capable of what others couldn't imagine, and yet at the simplest tasks of self control, it rebelled. “The pieces don't fit. Why do I need this? Why can't I just be the way I want to be?”

“I don't know, Sherlock. The brain is still a bit of a mystery, yours more than most. Maybe all the cognitive energy you need for long term planning and impulse control you've already spent categorising tobacco ash.”

Or maybe it was the drugs, John didn't say. Maybe Sherlock had irreparably damaged himself to the point that he'd always need John correcting and restricting him, saving him from his own bad judgement.

“Your behaviour is improving,” John said, as if reading Sherlock's mind. “Today notwithstanding, you've been almost pleasant.”

Sherlock didn't care whether he was pleasant. He cared whether he could maintain a working relationship with the Yarders, but somehow John had decided that pleasantness was a prerequisite.

John stood, taking Sherlock's silence as an end to the conversation, or at least this particular instance of it. “Apologise to Mary tomorrow. She doesn't like punishing you, and when you didn't follow the rules, you put her in a bad spot.”

He didn't need to answer, not when his obedience was assured by John's hand, rather than Sherlock's own will.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock found Mary in the kitchen, shovelling porridge into her mouth as she leaned against the counter. He took a deep breath and began to recite the apology that John had dictated.

“I'm sorry for my behaviour yesterday. I realise now that I put you in a bad spot when I didn't follow the rules.”

Mary laughed off his attempt. “Sherlock, I teach Year 8. I'm not adverse to enforcing rules.” 

It was an uncharacteristic refusal to accept his apology, and Sherlock wondered whether he'd made a mistake in articulating it. He'd used John's words, almost to the letter, though, and he had no idea what else she would be waiting for.

She turned to the sink and began to rinse her bowl, then looked back as the lull stretched too long for her comfort. Mary had a curious adversion to silence, and Sherlock found it an effective tactic in eliciting information from her. “You didn't put me in a bad spot. You broke the rules, and I punished you for it, just as we talked about beforehand.”

“Yes, I understand,” he tried again. “It was all within the parameters of what we'd agreed on. I mean to say that I should have controlled myself better so that you wouldn't need to punish me. I know you don't like to, and that my behaviour was unpleasant.”

“As I said, I teach Year 8.” 

Sherlock frowned at the implicit criticism of his earlier actions. Mary had been the one who'd been able to articulate Sherlock's eccentricities in the language of socio-emotional development and brain function. She hadn't explicitly told him that he was operating on the level of a young adolescent, but it wasn't a difficult deductive leap.

“I should have thought about how my behavior might affect you if you were forced to punish me.”

“Sherlock, I'm sure that at some point you will have that level of self regulation, but right now you don't. I appreciate the apology for your misbehaviour, but I knew what I was getting into. There's no need for you to apologise for my choices as well as your own.”

Sherlock struggled to adjust to the paradigm shift. He knew that she only punished him when his behaviour absolutely required it according to the terms of their agreement, and yet Sherlock was not to be sorry that he had forced her hand in that regard. She gave no indication of the details of the apology she was waiting for, though, and Sherlock's fingers twitched for a violin bow that was out of reach.

“I'm sorry I was angry at you afterwards, then,” he hazarded. “I shouldn't have tried to manipulate you into feeling guilty for punishing me.”

“You're allowed to be angry, and to express that anger in appropriate ways.” 

Sherlock reviewed the events of the previous night, searching for exactly what John was asking him to apologise for. When nothing else presented present itself, the knot of frustration just below his sternum began to grow, fed further by Mary's calmly curious expression.

“I'm taking responsibility for my behaviour, just as you've told me many times, and yet you obstruct every attempt to do so. Clearly you aren't interested in allowing me to express regret,so this conversation is futile.” He cut off the urge to deduce her, to put every foible and insecurity on display just because he could do. He knew what lay down that path, though. Instead, he began to brush past her into the sitting room, turning back unwillingly as she grabbed at his arm.

“Sherlock, stop!” He wondered whether he had earned another punishment, but when her hands came down on him, they were soft, comforting. “Regardless of my feelings, you should have gone to bed when I told you to. Other than that, I don't think you didn't much wrong. I can't see why you're determined to apologise for how I felt.”

“John forced me,” he spat out, and pulled from her hold.

“Okay,” she nodded. The turnaround was jarring, so much so that Sherlock couldn't quite believe that she had backed down so easily, but her posture and tone corroborated her words. He blinked down at her, wary and still, as she processed the new information. “I'm guessing this was John's idea, and you felt no need to apologise after last night?”

“Why should I apologise after you strike me?” Sherlock scoffed. “It's idiotic.”

“Quite so. Only an idiot would do such a thing.”

“As I already told you, John forced me.” 

“Yes, of course.” She bit at her lip and tapped a fingernail against the rim of the sink. “And as you're such an eager mouthpiece, I have my own message for you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IDEK

Sherlock had spent enough time observing John's behaviour in the past several months to know when it was better to give him a wide berth. He stopped himself two paces from the armchair where John sat reading the paper.

“Stop interfering, you overprotective git.”

John peered sharply over the top of the newspaper. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, could you not hear me?” Sherlock exuded pleasant condescension as he studiously stayed just out of John's reach. “Stop interfering, you overprotective git.”

“Sherlock, you're already on thin ice for what happened with Mary last ni-” John threw down the paper as he pieced the situation together. “Oh god, Mary told you to say that, didn't she?”

On some rare occasions, Sherlock felt John Watson might not be totally hopeless. 

Given that the question was rhetorical, Sherlock didn't feel the need to speak. Instead, he contented himself with tallying the rapidly increasing signs of John's alarm: loss of colour, quickened breath, a slight twitch of his eye, and the jitter of his heel on the floor.

“You told her I told you to apologize,” John accused him.

“You've forbidden me to lie to either of you.”

“I didn't ask you to pass on every bit of information!” John stood, and Sherlock took a slight half-step backwards, listening for any indication of Mary's approach. “You made it sound as if I didn't trust her to deal with you on her own.”

As usual, John's logic was unsound. John _didn't_ trust Mary to deal with Sherlock on her own, and it didn't take Sherlock's indiscretion for Mary to figure that out. Sherlock knew better than to point out the flaws in John's reasoning, though. Instead, he waited and watched as painfully slow realization crept across John's face.

“Damn it!” John snapped, but retained his misplaced anger at Sherlock. “Don't think you're off the hook on this, you manipulative-”

“John.” Mary's sudden appearance behind Sherlock was not a surprise, not with the way John's demeanour had transformed him into a pleading supplicant in the space of three seconds. “I take it you got my message?”

“I didn't mean to interfere. I just...” He trailed off, probably the second best course of action after apologizing, which is what he would have forced Sherlock to do if their situations had been reversed. Sherlock revelled in John discomfort, until Mary ended it far too soon with a kiss directly on John's lips, her hand wrapping around the back of his neck. John's body loosened with relief as he returned the kiss.

With John and Mary's attention on each other, it was a prime time for Sherlock to make his escape, and he took advantage, managing two steps toward his bedroom before being pinned by John's sharp gaze.

“You're still in trouble,” John reminded him.

He sighed and began to roll his eyes, only to stop at Mary's reply. “No, you're not.”

“Yes, he is,” John insisted. “He's been trying to play us against each other, and it's the exact sort of manipulative behaviour that Lestrade said he can't have on his team. He'll be banned from the Yard again if he doesn't learn to stop.”

Mary had so often deferred to John in Sherlock's discipline, allowing John to swoop in to enforce her authority as well as his own, that Sherlock was unprepared for what happened next. Mary stood her ground.

“John, no.” She looked almost angry as she faced off against him. “You can't ask him to take responsibility for things that aren't his fault.”

Strangely, Sherlock's perception of their arrangement pivoted in on itself as he watched their exchange, leaving him both comforted and alarmed. They'd never allowed him to see them discussing his behaviour before, and he'd not realized the depth of concern that informed their decision making. He'd also not realized the extent to which his own behaviour could influence the relationship that John and Mary had with each other. 

“Sherlock, could you give us some privacy for a moment, please?” Mary asked.

Presented with the opportunity to explore the new dynamic, Sherlock found himself much less willing to retreat to his bedroom. “It's my sitting room, too.”

“Sherlock, go to your room,” John ordered him, and this time Mary didn't contradict him, though her posture betrayed her irritation.

Sure enough, as soon as Sherlock had shut his bedroom door behind him, their voices filtered inside in a furious hush. Even without words, the intense conflict was clear.

Just several months ago, the situation would have been ideal. Mary had been the first girlfriend of John's since Sarah whom Sherlock had been unable to push away. She'd laughed at his refusal to learn her name, as well as the various implicit insults he had thrown her way. The escalation of his efforts had only led to more amusement on her part, and Sherlock had finally given up in disgust.

John had been in heaven. Between Sherlock's benign dismissal of Mary's presence and Mary's condescending delight at Sherlock's antics, he'd finally been able to juggle the demands of both relationships, Mary's because she was willing to share, and Sherlock's because he had no choice. The possibility of John moving out had loomed larger and larger, with Sherlock powerless to stop it.

In the end, Mary had moved in, and soon the two were so entangled, John-and-Mary, Mary-and-John, that Sherlock didn't know what would happen if his behaviour drove too much of a wedge between them. It could be enough to push John away completely. The alternative, Mary leaving them both, wasn't much more palatable, and Sherlock's breath quickened in alarm as he leaned against the door.

John was right, of course. Sherlock had been playing them against each other, and with no clear goal in sight. The only possible outcome was the end of the arrangement that Sherlock himself had wanted, one that he could have ended with just a word had he so chosen. Instead, Sherlock had chosen to engineer a spectacular failure.

He jumped at the knock on the door.

“Sherlock?” John cracked the door open. “Come back to the lounge.”

At least it wasn't the kitchen.

Then again, as Sherlock saw Mary's grim face, he thought he might be better off with a smacking and early bedtime. He sat down across from her and John, maintaining a stoic expression despite his internal turmoil.

“You are a good person, with some very self destructive tendencies.” John spoke, but the words were obviously Mary's, a transparent attempt to demonstrate unity between them. The sentence itself was carefully crafted to criticise Sherlock's behaviour without rejecting him as a person. He _was_ in trouble then, and deep enough that they felt the need to bolster his self-esteem with inane platitudes. He glanced around the immediate vicinity, but found no clues as to how they planned to discipline him. He generated, evaluated, and eliminated scenarios as John continued, “Part of the reason we agreed to this arrangement was to help you with that, and now you're doing your best to destroy it.”

John's insight startled him. If John realized that Sherlock had been sabotaging his efforts, the only reasonable response would be to abandon the arrangement entirely. Sherlock's only solace was that John's decision making was rarely ruled by reason.

“This has been confusing for you,” Mary added.

“I'm not confused.” Sherlock's response was reflexively oppositional, but correct nonetheless. He was not confused. He was panicked.

“Sherlock-” John started.

“I'm not confused, John. Remember who you're talking to.” A surge of adrenaline pushed his words out as fast as his tongue could contain them, and much faster than the prudent part of his brain could contain. “Your military training has left you with a rigid notion of discipline that respects a strict hierarchy and demands firm consequences for disobedience. Mary, however, comes from an educational background and sees herself more as a facilitator for my development of the target skills and behaviours. Despite this difference, you have no desire for Mary to enforce rules, because her reluctance conforms to traditional gender norms, and enforcing her directives allows you to indulge in masculine protector fantasies. Mary perceives this as interference and an implicit criticism of her own methods.”

John and Mary stared at him, then shared a cryptic glance.

“I meant that your own feelings about being disciplined are confusing for you,” Mary clarified.

“I'm not confused about my feelings,” Sherlock corrected her again. “I dislike it, but I accept it because it's necessary.” It was necessary for Sherlock, at least. It was certainly not necessary for Mary and John, the latter of whom was shaking his head at Sherlock's words.

“You don't accept it. You fight us on everything. It's exhausting.” John certainly did look exhausted, with dark circles under his out that couldn't entirely be contributed to the previous night out with his mates. “Sherlock, I can't go on like this.”

Luckily, Sherlock had seen this coming, and had already formulated his argument. “John, you said yourself that my behaviour has been improving. If things are getting better, there's no reason to change anything. It doesn't make any sense.”

“Sherlock, you've obviously been unhappy.”

“I'll be unhappier if you stop.” Sherlock was running out of breath, but his voice wouldn't stop. “I'll be banned from the Yard. I won't have any cases. I might go back to the drugs. You don't-”

“You can't threaten people with a drug-”

“I'm not threatening you. I not unhappy, though, not really. I'm just..” He stumbled over the sentence. He was just horrible. They had tried to help him and he'd been horrible to them.

“It's just a minor adjustment,” Mary said softly. “You're right that I wasn't happy that John jumped in every time you argued with me, but the constant arguing has to stop. It's making everyone miserable, including you.”

He said nothing, unsure what type of response would be interpreted as “argumentative” in John and Mary's eyes. Certainly John's definition was excessively broad.

“From now on,” John continued, “your arguments are rationed. You'll get a stack of cards every day, and every time you argue, you'll give one up. If you argue after you've given up all your cards, you'll be punished.”

Sherlock considered the proposition. It was essentially a demerit system., which he was familiar with from school. “You have to let me express my opinion.”

“You can,” John assured him, “but we hope this will help you become a bit more discerning about when you choose to express it. You'll get six cards: three for me and three for Mary.”

“Only three? John, you say many more than three stupid things a day.”

“Then you have to choose the top three to argue over. That would be a card, by the way.”

“That wasn't an argument!” Sherlock protested. “It was just a comment.”

“That would be another card.”

“But it's the same discussion. Why should it count as two?”

“And that would be your last card for me. I suggest you choose your arguments more carefully.”

Sherlock wanted to point out the unfairness of it all, but he knew that John would just tell him that he would be getting smacked already if the card system were in effect. Instead, he glared mulishly at the wall.

“Sherlock,” Mary prompted him. “I'm going to ask you a question, and I don't want to hear any answer other than 'yes' or 'no'. Is this card system acceptable to you?”

Sherlock waited a few seconds, registering his discontent with his silence, then said, “Yes.”

“Brilliant!” John answered. “I'll go get the cards.”


	7. Chapter 7

Sherlock had never worried about money in his life, not because he necessarily had an endless supply, but because he'd never had that much he'd wanted to spend it on. Consequently, dealing with finite resources was not exactly his area.

The first day, he ran out of cards before breakfast. To his surprise, Mary only sat him in the corner, letting him out after about a minute or so with a kiss on the cheek and an admonishment to think about what he said before he said it. The thought that sixty seconds staring at a wall would be an effective deterrent was insulting. After a day full of insultingly short minutes in the corner, when he caught himself considering whether it was worth it to argue over something he had no strong opinions about, he became infuriated. It had not ended well.

The second day, Mary and John increased his card ration to ten, five for each of them. Mary left for work before her cards ran out, and John's lasted until just after breakfast, when Sherlock threw the last one out the window in a fit of pique. John had not been pleased, and Sherlock had spent the next half hour picking rubbish up off the pavement around Baker Street. He only hoped Mycroft was deposing a dictator or engaging in another activity that would distract him from watching CCTV.

The third day, Sherlock made it until half four, when everything went awry. 

He'd been flipping through the papers, hoping for something interesting to distract him, when John came back from the chemist.

“Sherlock, you promised you'd take the photos off the wall. It's been a week, and Mary doesn't want to look at them. Neither do I, for that matter.”

Mary was absurdly squeamish when it came to corpses. Anything rotting or mutilated was especially disturbing to her, and Sherlock had been expected to accommodate this idiosyncrasy, even when it came to photos around the flat.

“John, the only way for her to get over this ridiculous aversion is to acclimate herself. If we systematically introduce her to-”

“Absolutely not,” John stopped him. “You agreed to take them down today. As you've used up all your cards, I suggest you mind what you have to say right now.”

John was right that Sherlock had agreed to take the photos down, but he was not right about the cards, not exactly. Sherlock had used five of his cards, but that didn't mean he had none left to use. He pulled a card from his sleeve and presented it to John triumphantly. “You're being unreasonable. There's no need for me to take down photos she's already seen. If they were going to traumatise her, they would have done so already.”

As Sherlock spoke, John rifled through the cards Sherlock had given him throughout the day. There were, of course, five, just the number that there should be if Sherlock had just given John the last card of the day. 

John frowned. “You picked my pocket. You took a card from my pocket so you'd be able to use it twice.”

Sherlock kept silent. It hadn't been a question, and even if it had, the answer would have been obvious. John was looking at him expectantly, and Sherlock matched his gaze until John took his elbow and began to march him to the kitchen.

John pulled one of the chairs out from the table and pointed Sherlock at it. “Bend over and put your hands on the seat.” Assured of Sherlock's compliance, John turned to the counter, and Sherlock tried to feel nothing as he obeyed the command.

Closing his eyes, he entered his mind palace. John grabbed the waistband of his trousers, and Sherlock gripped the chair tighter. The spoon came down hard and fast, and Sherlock would have wriggled away were it not for John's strong grip on him. Instead, he curled his toes and clenched his eyes shut, opening them only once the world had gone still again. He stood and stared at John, who used to be his only friend, before he became the only person Sherlock would trust to do this.

“Don't try to deceive me.” John pointed the spoon at him, and Sherlock didn't think he meant it as a threat, but stepped back nonetheless.

“I wasn't,” he muttered.

John gaped. “You nicked a card from me and tried to pass it off as one you hadn't used yet.”

“I wasn't deceiving you, though. I knew I'd be caught.”

“Why would you do that?” John ran his hand across his forehead and gave Sherlock an incredulous look. “You knew you'd be punished.”

“I don't know.”

“That's not an answer. You have a strategy for everything,” John accused him, and for the first time, Sherlock thought that John was giving him too much credit. The pressure to rationalise the irrational weighed on him, made heavier still by John's exasperated face. “What is it, Sherlock? Did you want me to punish you?”

“I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!” he shouted, and waited for John to smack him for his defiance. Instead, John was staring at him in alarm. As he felt the large, hot tears fall down his face, he realized why.

They were so engrossed in their own exchange, neither noticed Mary's return until the door swung open. Sherlock tried to turn away, but it was too late.

“What's going on? What did you do to him?”

“Nothing!” John protested, and Mary's eyes flicked to the spoon in his hand. “I smacked him, but not that hard. Did I hit you too hard?”

Sherlock shook his head, doing his best to hide his face from the both of them. He could barely feel the sting any more, but their concern was making him cry all the harder.

“I'd like to lie down now, please,” he asked, in just the manner they'd instructed him to ask for things.

“Let's get you to the sofa,” Mary said, dropping her bags and leaving the door wide open as she walked over to put a guiding hand on his back.

Sherlock had meant to retreat to his room, but he wasn't sure whether that clarification would constitute another argument, so he kept the information to himself. Besides, John and Mary were already steering him toward the sofa. 

He lay down and turned his back to both of them, hoping to be left alone in his misery, but John only left long enough to fetch a blanket to cover him, and Mary sat down right beside him and began to run her fingers through his hair.

“What happened?” she asked, and he shook his head, unwilling to recount the shameful incident.

John, of course, had no such reservations.

“So, you did something you knew was wrong,” Mary clarified after John had finished outlining all of Sherlock's mistakes, “knowing you'd get caught and punished, and you got caught and punished.”

Sherlock nodded into the cushions, hiding his flaming face.

“Okay,” Mary said, and she leaned down to kiss his hair. Sherlock wanted to pull away, but he was tired, and it was too easy just to lie there and let the affection soak in. She began to knead at his neck, something he'd seen her do for John before, but had never experienced himself. He could see why John liked it.

He wondered whether John would be jealous of Mary's ministrations, but suddenly John was sitting in the crook of Sherlock's knees, resting his hand on top of them. “I'm sorry I pushed you too hard just now. I know you weren't trying to be difficult.”

Sherlock had never needed to _try_ to be difficult.

“We want you to be happy, Sherlock,” John added.

“I know,” he said, and while he'd always known the fact intellectually, it was much easier to have a visceral understanding with Mary's hand massaging his neck and John's running up and down his arm. “I'd like to sleep now, please.”

As he adjusted into a more comfortable position, their hands left them, and he twisted his head back around to give them both a confused glare. “Why did you stop?”

Mary smiled down at him and resumed massaging his neck and scalp. “Sorry. Just a miscommunication.”

When John began to rub at his arm, Sherlock closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is definitely the last. This went a little further astray than I originally expected.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm really trying to finish this and it's taking forever, so I'm just posting what I have, even though I planned to have both the last scenes in one chapter together.

One of the hallmarks of the scientific method is that it produces reliable results. Sherlock, as a man of science, rarely let an unexplained phenomenon go by without reproducing the conditions, teasing out cause and effect with the precision that allowed him to observe and deduce on a level far beyond what most could dream of. When, after Sherlock's breakdown, everything seemed to change, John softening his approach and Sherlock finding himself pliable in the face of steady discipline, he knew that he should determine the exact mechanics of the shift, test the boundaries of its effects, and disentangle the exact factors that would let them replicate the ease with which they went through the next few days. 

It was too easy, however, just to go along with it, especially as the camaraderie between John and Sherlock reappeared, unshaken even by John's casual declaration that Sherlock was grounded for a week after using John's computer without permission. The idea of arguing over the punishment had seemed an inordinate amount of trouble, especially when it served as a convenient excuse not to leave the flat. 

When Molly had finally found a suitable liver for him, however, the situation had changed, and Sherlock began to search for a way to shorten his sentence. He'd settled on a plan, and it percolated through the back of his mind as he examined samples in the microscope.

The sound of Mary's approach distracted him. She was earlier than he'd expected, and she wasn't carrying any groceries. If she hadn't gone to Tesco's, then their dinner options were severely limited. 

“I don't want chicken tonight,” he called out through the door.

“Hello to you, too. I hope you had a wonderful day as well,” she answered back upon entering, dropping her school bag on the armchair and throwing her coat haphazardly over it.

“Anything else will do,” he continued as he rifled through his slides

“First, put the samples down and look at me,” Mary instructed from the sitting room, and Sherlock obeyed, properly storing each one before giving Mary his full attention. “Now, would you like to rephrase what you just said?”

He fashioned his expression carefully, projecting the most manipulative mix of hope and adoration he could produce. Mary would see right through it, but she wouldn't care. “Please, Mary, could we have something other than chicken tonight?”

“Since you asked so politely, we might be able to get a takeaway.”

“But it's not Friday,” Sherlock frowned. Takeaway was strictly reserved for Friday. In fact, until the previous week, the very words, “Takeaway is strictly reserved for Friday” had been posted to the refrigerator door, eight tidy sets of fifty sentences in Sherlock's own hand.

“I know, but you've been so lovely recently, we might be able to make an exception as a celebration.” She crossed to him and lifted his face to kiss his cheek. 

Brow furrowed, Sherlock ignored the endearment. “So, when I follow the rules, you get to break them.”

“When you show good judgement and self-control, we can be a bit more flexible.” She filled the kettle and turned it on. “I just need to check with John before I promise.”

“He's already texted you seven times today, twice within the last hour. He would have told you had I done anything too horrible. I know you two love nothing more than to share every misstep of mine with one another.”

“And you love nothing more than to be the centre of our attention.” She softened the criticism with a hand to his hair, and he tilted his head up to meet her eyes in expectation. “He told me you'd been wonderful.”

“Of course I have. I'm not an idiot.”

“Of course,” she echoed, and it seemed the perfect time to lay out his proposal.

“I still have all my cards. Do you think if I have them all at the end of the day, I can go to the morgue?”

“No.”

“But why not? I had to work very hard not to argue with John. You know how unreasonable he can be.”

She held out her hand, and he sighed and produced one of his cards.

“Because we're not asking you to stop arguing all together. You just need to think about whether the subject is worth arguing about.”

Sherlock fanned his nine remaining cards out in front of himself, wondering whether the entire day's work had been for naught. He fought the impulse to lash out at the failure of his plan, and instead tried to salvage what he could. “Will you still ask John about the takeaway?” he asked sullenly, then, for good measure, muttered, “Please.”

“Yes, of course.” She sat down beside him. “The cards are there for you to use them. Once you've gotten into the habit of thinking before you argue or insult us, we'll get rid of them all together.”

With the cards no longer a potential bargaining chip, Sherlock didn't care what happened to them either way. He threw them on the table and glared, punishing her with the silence he knew she detested.

“Sherlock, you have to learn to be happy even when things aren't exactly the way you want them. You'll be miserable otherwise, because the universe isn't going to cater to your every whim.”

As much as Sherlock would prefer to bend the universe to his will, her words were supremely rational, making them all the more annoying, and he refused to acknowledge them.

“Ah, the silent treatment,” Mary smiled and leaned in to wrap him in a hug. He allowed it, sitting passively as she held him tightly.

“I want noodles,” he finally mumbled into her shoulder, and she laughed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the end! Whoo-hoo!

They ate noodles in the sitting room, while Sherlock's experiment covered the kitchen table. Mary was right. They _had_ been more flexible since he'd been more amenable to their suggestions.

“My turn to do the washing up!” Sherlock proclaimed as he gathered the takeaway containers and binned them with a flourish. “Your turn next time,” he grinned at John.

“Too clever by half,” Mary said, and John frowned at both of them.

“Takeaway nights are not included in the rota.”

“It's not a takeaway night,” Sherlock reminded him, flopping down onto the sofa. “It's a celebration of how wonderful I am.”

“Well said,” Mary agreed. “And thank you for clearing the table.”

John grunted his dissatisfaction, but he wasn't convincing, not with the corners of his eyes crinkling up in a smile as he tugged Mary into his arms. “Get your coat, wonderful you. We're going for a walk.”

“Can't. Grounded,” Sherlock reminded John, settling in with his magazine.

“You're not grounded to the flat any more. You're grounded to me.”

Looking up sceptically from his magazine, Sherlock searched John's face for his intentions. “You're punishing me by forcing me to walk outside and eat pastries with you?”

“I'm not forcing you to eat pastries. Get your coat.”

“I'll force you to eat pastries,” Mary said, and she threw Sherlock's coat on top of him. “Hurry up. A cruel punishment awaits.”

Glaring half-heartedly at the both of them, Sherlock sat up and stubbornly held his coat in his lap. “It's not a punishment. You're trying to force me into social interaction in a vain effort to improve my interpersonal skills.”

“Your interpersonal skills are fine, when you choose to use them. Now, put on your coat. This is the third time I've asked.”

In actuality, it was only the first time John had asked, as the other times he'd only asked Sherlock to _get_ his coat, and Mary had already taken care of that for him. Sherlock didn't correct him, and instead watched John and Mary wrap up for the cold. They certainly looked the part of the perfect winter couple, adjusting each other's scarves and laughing as their hats set their hair askew. It really wasn't Sherlock's area.

“Has it ever occurred to you that we enjoy the pleasure of your company?” Mary asked him, handing over his scarf.

“No.”

John looked over and sighed in exasperation. “Sherlock, put on your coat. Do it now, before I force it onto you myself.”

It was the most interesting thing John had said in days. Surely he wouldn't actually force Sherlock into his coat, though the only way to find out would be to meet his challenge. Sherlock stared back in defiance, feeling the thrill of the fight as John approached him.

“Oh, for God's sake,” John said, and snatched the coat from Sherlock's lap. He reached for Sherlock's arm, but Sherlock leapt away just in time, feeling John's fingers brush against his sleeve. He tried to sprint to his room, but John pivoted and tackled him, and they both tumbled to the floor in a painful mess of coats and scarves and determination.

With John pinning him firmly to the floor, Sherlock grabbed the leg of the armchair to keep John from slipping the sleeve of the coat on. Finding a pressure point on Sherlock's right hand, John jabbed it, releasing Sherlock's grip on the chair, then forced the sleeve over his aching hand, and Sherlock clutched his left safely under his chest.

After several seconds of unsuccessfully tugging on Sherlock's arm, John gave up and instead dug his fingers into Sherlock's ribs. Sherlock writhed at the sensation. He hadn't been tickled since he was a child, and John took advantage of his reaction by grabbing his left hand and yanking the sleeve over it as well.

Defeated, Sherlock fell limp and allowed John to turn him onto his back. As his awareness widened beyond the struggle with John, he noticed Mary's shocked countenance, and his eyes widened as she marched toward them.

To Sherlock's surprise, however, she smacked _John_ , eliciting a yelp from him as her palm connected soundly with his arm.

“What were you thinking?! Sherlock almost cracked his head open on the edge of the table.”

At the image, Sherlock mind suddenly flashed pictures of him and John jumping from roof to roof across London, chasing after armed men, and staring down a psychopath, bombs strapped to John's chest as the red dot of a sniper's laser sight danced across their faces. John's eyes held the same scenes, and as they looked at each other and considered the possibility of the coffee table finally doing Sherlock in, they began to laugh.

Mary frowned at them, and John quickly stood, helping Sherlock to his feet as well, even as they continued to snort out their amusement. “Sorry, Mary,” John said, failing to keep his face straight during the apology.

“You're not sorry. You're laughing. That's the opposite of sorry.”

Her irritation only set off another fit of giggles, and she shook her head. “You two are hopeless.”

Sherlock was the first to pull himself together. “I'm sorry, Mary,” he echoed John, kissing her cheek for good measure, and allowing her to rest a hand on his face.

“It's good to see you laugh,” she told Sherlock before turning to John. “You, however...” She pointed at him and let the threat linger in the air before turning her back on both of them and heading down the stairs.

John waited until she was out of sight before breaking into a smile again. “It _is_ good, Sherlock. I've missed this.” He picked up Sherlock's scarf from the floor and handed it to him. “I've missed us.”

Sherlock wrapped the scarf around his neck. “It's fine. You have Mary, now.”

John snorted his derision. “You _are_ an idiot.”

Sherlock let the insult lie. John was smiling fondly at him, and something in Sherlock's chest had finally loosened, something that he hadn't even known was too tight. Sentiment reared its ugly head, messy and confusing, and Sherlock felt the need to express something he couldn't identify, a strange mixture of regret for the things he'd put John through, gratitude that John had stuck with him, and a promise to be better in the future.

“John, I...” Words failed him. He took several frustrated breaths, then reached out to grab John into his arms.

“Are you all right?” John asked, when he'd finally been released.

“Of course, John. I'm fine.” He straightened his coat, shaking off the emotions. “Mary's waiting for us.”

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock looked back up at John's face, an open book with a narrative that included everything they would never say to each other.

“John,” he said impatiently, “I already know.”

John nodded, satisfied and secure in Sherlock's deductive powers. The clamber of John's feet followed  
Sherlock down the staircase, and they walked into the London evening together.


End file.
